If you were around in 2006, you might have seen my Taking Back the House State-by-State series.  Well, this year, I've gotten a bit more ambitious.  Anyway, take a jump with me, and let's just see...

ALABAMA!

The Republican party and the Republican brand are in trouble.  Big trouble.  We all already know this with the anti-Republican sentiment nearly as high as the pro-Democratic sentiment nationwide.  

Our Presidential candidate is up nearly six points in polling averages.  Nearly all of our national groups are outfunding their Republican counterparts (where are you, DNC?) and the Republicans are retiring at a record rate rather than attempt to serve in the minority after a hard-fought battle -- if they even win back their seats.

And if you want more evidence, look below the fold for the changes by the Cook Political Report released today.

Website: http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/

Email: rshuler3156@gmail.com

Bio: I'm a transplanted Midwesterner who has lived in Alabama 30 years. Karl Rove built his national reputation on state-court races in Alabama, and I've seen firsthand the havoc that "King Karl's" conservative judges have wreaked on our justice system.

With 35 Senate seats being contested this year (33 plus 2 special elections), Democrats have only 4 female candidates: Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Kay Hagan (NC), Vivian Figures (AL) and incumbent Sen. Mary Landrieu (LA). That's a shamefully low number. The Republicans only have 2 incumbents, Elizabeth Dole (NC) and Susan Collins (ME), and one sole challenger, Christine O'Donnell (DE).

Overall, this is not a great year for women in the U.S. Senate. The overall outcome will be somewhere between minus 2 and plus 4 female Senators. The most likely outcome is somewhere between minus 1 and plus 1.

So, let's look ahead to 2010. Specifically, to which Democratic female politicians might or should run for the U.S. Senate in 2010.

Alabama Gov. Riley caught in a LIE?  Apparently, he caught himself!!

Gov. Riley is parsing the truth, not-so-cleverly dodging the questions with non-denials, and back peddling on his own words.

He said he talked to Karl Rove by saying, "He told me he would" testify.  This AFTER
he said he had talked to noone (actually, he said he said that to Don Siegelman years before, and may have lied to Don Siegelman).  Then he quickly back tracks and says he has not talked to Karl for two years.  Well two years ago was before Karl was asked to testify.

He only denied talking to "a prosecutor" about Siegelman.
He said nothing about a prosecutor's husband, i.e. Bill Canary!
The truth lies (pun intended) between the lines and the not-so-clever parsing.

So, did he LIE?  Has Riley been talking to Rove?  
Who cares.  I just want to know how he stole the 2002 election!

================

Interesting article today about how Alabama Congressman Artur Davis believes that the Obama effect will help in this state two years down the road. So Davis has more or less announced that he will be running for Governor in 2010. What is really interesting is that he more or less says that we shouldn't worry about Obama winning this state. I find that these were really damaging remarks whether or not they were intended to be.

Please read and rec this article. And donate http://www.actblue.com/...

Every State. Every race. Right here.

This is number fourteen in a planned series of 50 entries between now and November, looking at each of the 50 states in terms of every race on that state's ticket--Presidential, Gubernatorial, Senate, House, State legislatures--the whole ball of cotton.  Special attention paid to identifying and promoting the most important contests per state.

Today, we will explore the alphabetically gifted state of ALABAMA!

The Obama Cabinet Poll series is almost over. Next week I will put together 5 different cabinets out of your 3 top choices in each round and either the 4th and/or 5th in each round or a wildcard where necessary to ensure diversity. You are then able to rate each cabinet on a scale from 1 to 10. The cabinet with the best average will then be the winner of this series.

Today is the last day you can vote in all of these polls and in several of them your vote can still make a difference.

Below the fold you will also find my personal choices for an Obama cabinet. With one caveat though: In almost all rounds I had several candidates I liked. My Obama cabinet could have looked entirely different as well.

I've been posting a lot of info on the Alabama U.S. Senate race. I've gotten a lot of positive feedback on this site and a few donors have given. I would definitely like to see some more action here and appreciative of all that has been done.

While I am going to talk about that race, I also want to briefly get into some of the House races and how that could also affect the Senate races. The primary election is next Tuesday so some of these are not official matchups.

Again all your help with getting some more attention to Vivian Figures will be appreciated. Can you help me at least reach $2,000 on this page this week with the primary next week? Strength is in numbers and small donations. Click on the thermometer to donate.

Call to action for the netroots and bloggers. We may just have a Southern Red State in Play. We have gotten some good attention the last few days on the Alabama Senate Race.

There was an article posted today that should give some good insight as to why this should and will happen.

Please donate what you can and draw attention to this race

http://www.actblue.com/...

Most of my ancestors are Scots-Irish, some are English but that is heavily diluted over the several centuries since the Kendricks arrived in the middle colonies in the late 1600s and my branch migrated slowly down through the Piedmont and into the Carolinas. On the other side, it's all about the hillbillies, folks who came down from the mountains after multigenerational sojourn to meet other folks and then decide to produce a branch of the family tree that includes the likes of me.

Point is, the sudden and uncomfortable prominence of Appalachia in politics hits close to home for me. These are my mountains, too. I grew up in sight of them, spent considerable time visiting there, and for me it really does feel like home. But it also feels out of time, in both senses; a part of the country the rest of us (and that is the proper term; I'm an outsider for sure) never waited for as we rushed westward and future-ward.

And now the hills have cleared their throat and been given a chance to pay back the rest of the country for progressing without its permission by having a unprecedented influence in the Democratic presidential primary race, after long being largely ignored in politics and if the mine safety issue is any indication, being ignored by the protections of the law as well.

On my daily crusade to garner attention for this race, I've found yet another angle as to why we should go after Jefferson Beauregard Sessions. I am excited because I see his name popping up in comments from various diaries. We need to rally around Vivian Figures, who is inspirational candidate that is on the right side of the issues. Plus this article has nothing to do with Superdelegates, Obama or Clinton

In order to get some positive momentum before the June 3 Primary, we need to reach our goal this week. We should continue to support the Rice's, Noriega's, Kleeb's and more. But we can spare a little change for this race. Can ten of you give $25.01 and help me get closer to my goal?

Please recommend this diary

A lot has been said about the 50 State Strategy as of late. I know that we have to allocate resources. However, I do feel that the AL-Sen race has been underestimated. It is a race that has serious potential for several reasons.  I think that we need to think about what this 50 state strategy really means. Is it house races, local races, statewide races or Senate races?

Will you help me draw attention to this race?

Donate $15.01, $30, $50.38 or whatever you can afford today to help me draw attention to this race. We need to easily win this primary and propel ourself for attention into the fall.

http://www.actblue.com/...

The overwhelming, embarrassingly huge rejection of Obama by the West Virginia Democratic Party, this late in the game and after Obama's all but wrapped it up, indicates that West Virginia goes Republican in an Obama / McCain contest.  (Losing 3:1 among women and workers earning under 50%?  Yikes!)

Likewise, Obama's failure to extend the olive branch by seating the Michigan and Florida delegations as per their primaries (even though seating delegations pledged overwhelmingly to Hillary won't effect anything but his ego), combined with the continued shenanigans and corruption of Detroit-area Democratic elected officials (starting with the self proclaimed "hip hop mayor"), puts those two states in McCain's column.

Of course Karl Rove declines to testify in person. Although he indicates he will testify in writing. What does that mean and will it be acceptable by the Judiciary Committe, we do not yet know.

http://www.al.com/...

I'm taking a bit of a different angle on this. I'm showing why this whole matter is really good for Democrats in Alabama. There have also been reports that Jeff Sessions and Bill Pryor were also guilty of illegal contributions. I"ll go into that also.

I'm asking for you to see that this all goes toward the fact that we can beat Jeff Sessions this fall. Please help me today with whatever you can to get Vivian Figures into a strong position for the general.

In yesterday's poll something happened which I haven't seen done in such an obvious and blatantly stupid way in any other poll before. The voting on the next Sec. of the Interior was pretty much done, maybe a vote here and there was still coming but it was pretty much over. Then I noticed how the vote total for Les AuCoin (who had somewhere between 5 and 8 votes before this started) was slowly rising. At first it looked as if someone just wanted him to surpass Olypia Snowe who was in second place with 11 votes at that time. But that person didn't stop there. While the vote count for everyone else remained pretty much stagnant (Robert Kennedy, Jr.'s went from 60 to just 63 in this time frame), Les AuCoin's went from the single digits to a total of 42 votes. So, one person actually took the time to vote for him more than 20 times to get him into a runoff with Robert Kennedy, Jr.

So I know that many of you that read this site probably thought Ron Sparks was our only chance to get rid of Jeff Sessions. Well, Sparks decided not to run and Vivian Davis Figures is our candidate. With Obama the eventual nominee, this race is certainly in play. Turnout will be high all over the state. Can you help raise $500 today that will be matched? Can I get 15 Contributors as well?

WE can really make some heads turn. If they did it in Miss CD1 we can do it here for sure.!!!

http://actblue.com/...

Lest we must not forget those Senators and those that essentially said that if we pull the wool over their eyes for six months it is okay for women not to receive equal pay.